IAS officers lend support to Durga Shakti

Alarmed by the suspension of the young IAS officer, Durga Shakti Nagpal, by the UP government, bureaucrats in Bengal have urged the Centre to provide adequate safeguards for All India Administrative Services officers.

Members of the Indian Administrative Service Association (IASA), West Bengal, for the first time raised their voice against the suspension of Durga Shakti. IASA president Moloy Kumar De, a senior bureaucrat, has written to the minister of state and secretary of the department of personnel and training (DoPT) under Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pension, in this regard. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds the ministry.

“The DoPT should consider providing adequate safeguards in the All India Services (discipline and appeal) Rules, 1969 regarding ‘suspension’ so that no irreparable loss and injustice is caused to the members of the service, which is sinequa-non to maintain uprightness, honesty and integrity of the members of the service. Last but not the least, the morale of the members to serve the public at large following the law of the land,” De said in the letter.

De has also requested the Centre to intervene in order to revoke the suspension of Durga Shakti with immediate effect.

“Any other step the DoPT feels necessary to ensure that such injustice is not meted out to the members of the service because of biased, mala fide unjust action of the governments of the day for not obeying the illegal and arbitrary orders of the unscrupulous elements of society,” De’s letter states.

According to the IASA, Durga Shakti was totally on the right side of the law.

“Her enforcement of law was apparently creating problems for the vested interests of the district, which used the opportunity in a malicious manner and in the grab of creating communal tension got the officer illegally suspended,” it says.

The UP government’s decision to suspend the young officer has led to lot of anguish and annoyance among the IAS personnel across the country, Bengal bureaucrats condemned the move in the letter.

A senior bureaucrat as well member of the association felt the letter to the ministry has also virtually implied an undertone of sending a message to the Mamata Banerjee’s government in the home state.

She was suspended by the Akhilesh Yadav government for demolishing a wall of a religious place Kadalpul village in Goutam Buddha Nagar in Noida of UP allegedly causing communal tension.